Hi all am new to your forums, I am playing AS since last year and I have decided to create an entire hostile jungle themed campaign. The first map is already finished. I have just started the second one, but I may need some help concerning my english skills, it is not always easy for me to write in a correct english^^

Well am a Chaos mapper too, and I love both ChaosUT and AS. Two incredible mods !

What should be a campaign in jungle without land mines ?
I have created a new land mine actor, that is called... New Land Mine ! You can download it here, am sure some of you have tried to add ut2004 regular land mines to their map...
there is only one explosion per mine and no need to add any mover with this actor.

EFR adds landmines to the loadout. There's also an 'evil' version of the mines which mappers can put in their maps, and a custom tech scanner hack in the EFR mutator so you can see them on your radar. It's also possible to disarm them, dig them out and place them anew in your favor. Check out Ao-EFR5-BeggarsPoint to get an idea how it works.

Thanks for all your replies guys
First of all (as Mr. NoData asked me) I am french so you are no longer alone I have realised a lot of maps for ChaosUT (Duel and KotH) and a few for ut2004 regular DM or BR...
I have decided to make something with ASw because this mod has impressed me a lot !
Concerning maps and add-ons for ASw I do have whatever you have mentionned, except the RIFT project (never heard about it before sorry)

I will put 5 maps, but the first one is very very short, a kind of introduction to familiarize players with jungle environnements made by L'Architecte ( lol ). As NoData has proposed to take part to the beta tests, I accept of course with all the joy thanks a lot (you can correct my english too)

Oh and about the land mines : I didnt know they were brought to ASw. In fact I just started EFR, so I dont know how they look. In my map the land mines are pretty hard to spot, you cant disarm them nor to see em on the radar (maybe old mines from WW2^^)

The first map is very laggy especially at the beginning cause there are 2 terrains with several layers for each and 6 or 7 deco layers for one of them. I did it on that way cause I didnt know how to use decolayers paint tool^^ and I dont want to remake it entirely with a single terrain (as I have learnt how to use it).

Not bad at all. Jungle theme is definitely one of the hardest of all possible to get right in ASw, good luck.

Some hints:
- there is nothing in the map that justifies a map size of 24mb atm. Seriously, an ASw map bigger than 10MB is pretty rare and should look like it. Start optimizing now, it's a lot harder later on.
- For example, you don't need a skybox, since the game is all played in top down view. Voila, six full sized 1024x1024 textures are already obsolete...
- There is a ton of textures in various degrees of green in the retail packages, no need to add new ones really that don't even create a noticable difference.
- test how far the camera goes across the border: no use placing anything (trees...) outside of camera range.
- overhead deco that obstructs view is a big NoNo, unless you have very good reason and it doesn't interfere with gameplay at all. When in doubt, at least make it transparent.
- the sheer greenness is nothing short of overwhelming, as in inducing motion sickness while playing. You have a terrain sheet at your disposal, so start doing a decent paintjob. There is no such thing as green walls in a jungle, I suggest a mix of green/horizontal with brown/vertical faces to simulate muddy terraces. Also paint borders (where walls and floor meet) and the floor under the water puddles in a noticable different color. You will surely like the effect.
- Aliens shouldn't appear out of thin air, as they do on the bridge atm. It's supposed to be a backspawn, but remember, later it's not you alone playing, people will be spread out a lot more in a group of eight. Create 'caves' for the critters to crawl out, spawn them in bushes, drop them from trees, whatever.
- Environments look most believable if you cluster objects in groups. Like: a stone, a water puddle, a plant, some fog and a patch with differnt ground color together. If you spread stuff out evenly or smear it across the landscape, or avoid deco alltogether, it appears odd to the human eye.
- objectives could use an overhaul. "Go from point A to point B and don't get blown up on the way" isn't very satisfying really. As a rule of thumb, if you have to put a powered up giant spider in your map to make it interesting, something's not right.
- This is Alien Swarm, not FarCry. It's the future. It's an alien planet. If there's human made stuff littered throughout the jungle, it's probably rather made of titanium and super-durable plastic, not stone and wood... really, the more high-tech the crap initially was, the more sexy it looks once rusty and overgrown.

Decent work so far, but still needs some serious doing to reach status:releaseable.

I am working on a new beta03 where all the myLevel stuffs are included in external tex/sm packages, decreasing the map file size (and also the loading duration while playing). Actual size (beta03) : 8,90 mb

I have started this map for a very long time, and I didnt know how to use decolayers painting tool, this was the reason why there are 2 terrains. I have learnt this a few months ago, but it was too late concerning this map. I cannot restart from the beginnig...

About alien spawning : this is a good idea, I will place aliens spawners in low bushes or in the trees...

You have mentionned overhead decorations obstructing the view ; if really deconcerting, I can replace the current texture with a transparent one.

I am working on the integration of decorations on the terrain, you say it shouldnt be simply a collection of sm put together... I can add a new terrain layer under them and use textures for these objects that already exist in the map (if I correctly understand your thought)

One word about objectives : hard. Hard to set them up in a really small map. This was first an exploration mission, but who cares ? people prefer killing aliens and avoiding funny traps (like in EFR, gj). This is an introduction to my campaign, but it could be a kind of tutorial to help players travelling jungle environnements...

Anyway I am glad to get so much feedback thanks a lot for your help and critics

edit : oh I forgot to talk about the use of stone and wood. Err... this is not a joke, I thought wood and stone (concrete) were better, and the base was surely not able to survive to any swarm attack^^ I can understand that. Let me see what I can do...

Some important things are changing : there may never be any public release of this first map because players dont need intro maps or a new tutorial for a campaign. I think I will use it as a base for another map later...

Never mind, I am working at the moment on the 2nd map : Greenfalls Monitoring Station. It is an indoor tech/industrial/humanoid themed map (right ?), build with the same style (Larch style heh). I'd say 5% completed... (no beta tests for the moment sorry)

Am glad to hear you talk about Chaos yep SB mirrors a lot of my maps but not the latest releases if you're interested...

I was a "semi official chaos mapper" but as I am upset with the Chaotic Dreams I left their team.

Concerning ASw, well, I have too much work, I had started for a very long time before this ASw project some other things, and I'd like to complete those first. I have released the LARCHMP (9 maps for CUT2), I have created 7 of the 14 maps of the Chaos Community Bonus Pack, and a lot of CUT standalone maps. I wont continue to make so many maps if I am not integrated to the Team. Idem concerning any mod, ie ASw and UW.

My three favorite mods are ChaosUT, Alien Swarm and UnWheel. I have planed several projects for each mod, but I can not complete all of them, that represents too much work !
Look at my work for the CUT mod. Not enough consideration for it. That's why I wont make maps for CUT anymore.

I am currently working on a great UnWheel project and I hope it will be released one day.

Yes I have, but I need first to learn how to use it. You know what ? if I have a little time this week, I will make a BIG CUT map pack with ALL my maps so every one can get it easily instead of downloading bits and bits anywhere...

It is a bit sad that you want to freeze that AS project. But I understand your reasons. Get the other stuff finished first.

The chainsaw: I would like to try myself on it. A melee weapon for AS has been a dream of mine for a long time. As for my coding abilities, they are meagre, I haven't gotten further than to be able to copy code together, and modify it to work in AS. For example, I ported a Ripper weapon, made for 2k4 by the Fraghouse team, to AS. For private learning purposes only, but it works.

About the maps, I would like to see what you got. If you really see no chance of finishing them in the near future, and are really willing to give away what you got, then I would like to try make something playable out of it.
I would of course grant you full veto rights for everything that I change or add.

Me and the other SpaceEngineers might be able to make something out of it. And if what we make is too bad for your taste, we can still forget it, and see it as a practise project only.

But there is a chance that something good comes out of it. Sofos and Tchatzi are able to code, kjk maps, x-newbie works himself into modeling. I for my part am not very good at anything, but I know a bit about AS, and the very basics of mapping, and sometimes have lots of ideas and like writing stories and text. So we have a small team already.
We often thought about building a campaign out of what we got, but what we got, in terms of the number of original maps, never was enough, or good enough, to really get it started.

With some architecture made by a mapper with more routine, and the ideas and concepts for additional maps that wouldnt need much more than finishing, this might change.

Yes I have, but I need first to learn how to use it. You know what ? if I have a little time this week, I will make a BIG CUT map pack with ALL my maps so every one can get it easily instead of downloading bits and bits anywhere...

Sounds great, finally might start playing some good maps, other than Brawnwen, over and over